Nerdiness and identity labels

What with all the talk about Star Wars going on, I’ve thought a bit about nerd culture and how I (don’t) fit in.

A lot of the staples of mainstream nerdiness are movies/TV shows like Star Wars, or maybe the Star Treks, or maybe even Firefly, plus of course the superhero stuff from Marvel. That’s what inspires talk, that’s what’s seen as “True Nerdiness” by the misguided gatekeepers, that’s what generates critiques and fanworks. It’s also the box I’m sorted in when I say I like science fiction. It’s also a box I’m not interested in at all.

I can tolerate movies and TV, but I don’t like them; loud bangs interspersed with whispered crucial dialogue, often with regurgitated plots from other such stuff, and no options of re-reading or skimming a boring bit. My SF is books. Books stay with me; movies and TV do not touch the organ that so appreciates the exposition.

Where are the people who will chatter about The Quantum Thief? Who will talk about robotic self-determination in Asimov’s Robot saga? Who will groan at the most politically weird parts of the Honor Harrington series with me? Who will grumble about tonal mismatches in the last few Vorkosigan books unprompted?

TL;DR: The Penguin is slightly envious of people who have huge fandoms full of content, and would wish to be able to find Her People more easily. Or at all.

(I also have weird feelings of unease about gendering myself online.)